Kristi Noem was accused of using hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds for an ad campaign and private jets. After she was fired, her former right-hand man, Corey Lewandowski, was accused of attempting to personally profit from government contracts. His former right-hand woman, Kara Voorhies, is now under investigation, too.

All of this is prompting some reflection among Republicans in Congress: Maybe they should be keeping a closer eye on the Department of Homeland Security.

“We should probably do some oversight,” Sen. Josh Hawley, a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, told NOTUS. “I don’t know the last time that the chairman did an oversight hearing on DHS. I can’t think of it. Maybe it’s just slipping my mind. But it’s not a very active committee. Probably should be.”

Noem, Lewandowski, and his adviser, Voorhies, who was a contractor with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have all come under heightened scrutiny since departing the Department of Homeland Security.

In March, NOTUS reported that Voorhies had become the subject of a congressional inquiry into Noem and Lewandowski’s handling of federal contracts. Voorhies reportedly played a major role in reviewing contracts, at times stopping certain contracts from advancing.

Last month, the ranking Democrats on the House Homeland Security, Oversight, and Transportation Security committees announced that they are investigating her role at FEMA.

The scandals led some Republicans to call for even more review of how the agency was run under Noem’s leadership.

“Noem proved to be out of her depth, and she delegated things that should have not gone to those two,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, who was a vocal critic of her leadership at DHS.

Specifically, Tillis was pushing for DHS funding so “that the audit can be done and the inspector general can begin their work. And I think you’re going to find a lot of lapses in judgment, and maybe even beyond that.”

The calls for more oversight are also coming from inside the agency.

“Congress definitely needs better oversight of DHS, specifically because of the bureaucracy and because its recent leaders have used it as a political football,” a current FEMA employee told NOTUS. “Federal agencies should not be impacted by partisan players, which is part of why having an unvetted contractor like Voorhies with so much influence is so damaging.”

On March 29, CNN reported that Voorhies was involved in FEMA’s discussions around policy changes, personnel decisions, awarding contracts and accepting budgets despite being a contractor. Senior officials at the agency reportedly asked for her approval “before disbursing aid, briefing Congress or sending documents to the White House.”

Federal regulations mainly bar contractors from performing government functions.

The Washington Post reported that Voorhies attempted to prevent Muslim groups from receiving FEMA security grants, and that she was given access to meetings that a source told the Post “should have been government-only.” Voorhies was also regarded as the main enforcer of Noem’s approval rule for expenses over $100,000.

DHS, Voorhies and Lewandowski did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment. Lewandowski has previously denied personally benefiting from certain contracts related to Trump’s mass deportations agenda.

These allegations were made publicly after Noem’s departure.

That’s an issue not unique to the Department of Homeland Security, Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, told NOTUS.

“Even with oversight, whether you bring testimony, etc., it’s really hard to see what’s going on inside, really deep inside any of those agencies,” Gimenez said, adding that it would be “unfair” to say oversight was only flawed with DHS.

Current and former officials at FEMA point to the lack of qualified leadership as one source for its oversight troubles.

FEMA has not had a Senate-confirmed administrator since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. (Recent reports indicate that the president is expected to nominate former FEMA acting Administrator Cameron Hamilton, who was removed after testifying to Congress last year that the agency should not be eliminated.)

“I think oftentimes, the stuff that’s happening behind the scenes is just missed in the larger conversation,” one former FEMA official who worked in both the Biden and Trump administrations said. Many conversations are missed “because they are happening at the staff level, like congressional staffers talking with FEMA agency staffers,” they said.

There were other issues under Noem that have drawn the attention of lawmakers, from Lewandowski seeking payments from DHS contractors to policies that delayed FEMA’s response times.

But even as Republicans sound more open to investigating the Trump administration when it comes to Noem, they sound just as eager for a fresh start with Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

“I trust Secretary Mullin is working to ensure the department is a good steward of taxpayer dollars, and the Committee will continue conducting oversight to ensure DHS components and their contracting practices are effectively contributing to the core mission of advancing our homeland security,” House Homeland Security Committee chair Andrew Garbarino said in a statement to NOTUS.

Rep. Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican on the committee, told NOTUS that he attended a meeting with Mullin last week where he discussed DHS funding issues.

“So at this point, it’s been a good relationship between our Congress and Homeland Security,” he said.

Mullin has taken several actions to calm frustrations on Capitol Hill, including removing Noem’s $100,000 sign-off policy. He also reinstated FEMA employees who were put on administrative leave for criticizing the agency’s leadership.

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford described the Senate’s oversight of the department as “a mix.”

“I don’t get the reporting each day, each month, of what’s actually been spent, how it’s done,” Lankford said. “But does it all come out? Yes. Does that have an inspector general that actually goes through all that? Yes.”